


Forget Me Nots in Bloom

by diaphanous87



Series: The Many Ships of Tilly [9]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Amaurotine Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), F/M, Flowers, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Forgiveness, Getting Back Together, Happy Ending, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Love, No beta we die like mne, Post-Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, aftermath of 5.0, the author indulges herself, the world of Dissidia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:42:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21572422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diaphanous87/pseuds/diaphanous87
Summary: Ascian... Emet-Selch... No.Hades...Hades never expected to live after being struck down. He had meant to die; he had wanted to die. And if it was by Her fragment's hand, then all the better. He did not expect to fall into this dream and see this ghost of Her. Was it real? No, it couldn't be.But if it was a dream, he did not want to wake. Please, do not let him wake.
Relationships: Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light
Series: The Many Ships of Tilly [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1536589
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	Forget Me Nots in Bloom

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted something soft, so I wrote this. 
> 
> Aw gods, this is fluffy. I'm gonna die from this much indulgence. Also flower meanings. Because I'm a sap. Send help.

* * *

** Forget Me Nots in Bloom **

* * *

“I should be cross with you.”

That voice… surely not….

“Wake up, sleepy head.” A soft laugh, achingly familiar, sounded in his ears. “You really haven’t changed at all, have you? At least in this.” Warm fingers stroked his forehead. “Come on, I know you’re awake.”

“And if I open my eyes, will you disappear?” Hades asked. “Will I wake back into that nightmare?”

Soft lips pressed against his cheek. “I don’t know. You tell me, Mr. Architect.” The thighs his head was apparently pillowed on shifted a little. “Hades…” the voice sighed, full of fondness and sadness alike. “Will you not open your eyes?”

Slowly, Hades cracked open his eyelids. Soft light greeted his sight. He blinked to focus. He looked up to see a beloved face above him. Tears rolled down his own face, soaking the hair at his temples. “It’s you,” he choked out. “How?” He vaguely realized that he was stretched out before this person, head in their lap. “Persephone.”

Green eyes, the same shade as new leaves, crinkled up with her smile. “There you are,” she said. Her fuchsia colored curls flowed down and around her face, nearly brushing his nose. A crown of forget me nots rested upon her head. Her small hands cupped his cheeks, fingers near his jawline. “Hello, Hades. Good of you to wake.”

“Is this a trick?” he wondered. He felt sick at the thought. “If so, it is a cruel one.” Hades sat up, the hands holding his face slipping off. He turned on his knees to face this apparition. This ghost in a field of blue flowers. “I should be dead.” He pressed gloved hands to his chest. “The auracite struck true and…”

“My fragment struck you down, yes.” Persephone reached out to hold his hands in hers. “But there was a backlash, a terrible one.” She shrugged. “Hydaelyn will have to find a new champion.”

“She has been using you!” Hades struggled to his feet in anger. “The pieces of you have been her pawns for ages! And I…” He fell back to his knees, blue petals flying up. “And I…” He gripped the front of his robes. “His darkness, it’s gone!” He couldn’t feel the burn of Zodiark’s power, hear his whispers, nothing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw not only his single lock of white hair, no. All of his hair was back to its original white. He looked up at his bemused wife. “How? Where are we?”

“Far beyond their influences,” she answered. Standing, the once missing fourteenth Convocation member approached him. “We are on a world far from Hydaelyn, far from Zodiark.” She cupped his face. “Did you know that young Ma’tylda and lost Ardbert were my biggest fragments? They were also the last two left on the Shards. The rest of me, when they died, came here. Would you like to know why?”

“Please enlighten me.” Hades slowly stood. He held her hands in his after banishing his gloves. The warmth of her skin made this dream all the more real. She was real… “Beloved wife.”

Persephone stepped closer, pressed up against him. Her nose brushed the underside of his jaw. He curved over her to soak in her presence. “My heart I kept away from her. I sent it here with all of my memories. I knew if I hadn’t done so, Hydaelyn would have erased all of it when I summoned her. All the better to forge her champions, yes?”

“And where is here?” Hades looked out across the field of blue blossoms, his gold eyes filled with wonder. “Forget me nots.”

“I grew them myself. As a reminder. But anyway, it is a world between universes. There used to be a pair of beings who once fought over it, according to the few denizens here. A great war of the gods.” Persephone laughed when he snorted in derision. “My thoughts exactly. But the denizens are almost exactly like the Beastman Primals.”

“What?!”

“Hush, love. Let me finish.” Persephone wrapped her arms around his waist. She tilted her head up and grinned at him. “They’re called Espers here and they do not suck this land dry of magic. That was the gods who were doing that. But they are dead, taken down for a final time by the very warriors they had forcefully summoned to fight in their stead.”

“Foolish.”

“Hmm. Apparently to replenish the energy that they consumed, they used these warriors and pit them against one another to generate energy born from battle.”

Hades huffed. “A poorly thought out formula. And of course they were betrayed and rightfully so.” He hugged her shoulders, pressing his nose to the crown of her head. He breathed in her scent of green growing things and soft musk. The petals of her flower crown tickled his cheek. “I have missed you, my love.” He brushed a kiss along her temple. “I was so angry at that woman, she looked so much like you.”

“I know.” She pinched his bottom, causing him to yelp. “You were very mean to her. She was doing her best, poor girl.” She nipped his chin and laughed. “But she forgave you, in her last moments.”

“She had your generosity then. I did not deserve it. What I allowed to happen, what I helped summon, the deeds I committed in the millennia after… how can you stand me? How can you stand to touch me? Allow me to touch you?” Hades ripped himself out of her embrace, his fingers burrowed in his snowy hair. He squeezed his eyes shut, tears leaking out at the corners. “The evils I have done in Zodiark’s name! I reveled in it!”

“You were Tempered.” Persephone placed her hand at the small of his back. “Hades, you were a slave to his will. He twisted you up, tainted your free will for his purpose. Mayhap that does not completely absolve you but it must count for something. It does for me.” She drew closer and pressed her forehead between his shoulder blades. “After all these centuries, I have loved you. I still love you. I will always love you.”

“Persephone…” Hades turned and fell to his knees before her. Wrapping his arms around her hips, he shoved his face against her belly, the material of her robes soft. “I love you.” His shoulders heaved when he felt her fingers stroke through his hair.

Hades wept.

* * *

Hand in hand, Hades and Persephone strolled the fields of flowers. Forget me nots. Daisies. Blue irises. Sunflowers. “You have been busy,” Hades said. He stroked the petals of a blooming snapdragon as they passed by.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Persephone replied. Her shoulder brushed against his arm. “And you know me and flowers. Though my work is still incomplete. There are a lot of battle scarred places here.”

“I see.” Hades lifted her hand that was clasped in his and kissed the back of it. He smiled at her blush. “And I see that courtly gestures still fluster you. Good to know.” He laughed when she shoved at him with her other hand.

Tugging her against him, Hades bent down, cupping her cheek. He slotted his mouth against hers. He smiled at the feeling of her arms snaking around his shoulders. He gripped her robe at the small of her back to pull her closer. They were flush against one another. The hand against her cheek moved to hold her nape. Persephone sighed, opening her lips beneath his in clear invitation. One he readily took.

Hades bore Persephone down among the blossoms. Their aether intertwined in a familiar dance as a reflection of their physical selves. And as he drew out her cries of pleasure that rang both in his ears and against his soul, Hades swore never to let her go again. This new world was theirs to keep. Theirs to mold.

He would help her fill it with flowers.

* * *

**END**

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, just took a break from the sin bin. Tap the kudos button or leave a comment if you like Thanks for reading!


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